Traditionally, advertisers have had to rely on industry estimates in order to gage how many audience members had received their advertisements for products, services, and announcements. For example, in broadcast and cable television markets in the US, the A.C. Nielsen marketing and information company has generated estimates referred to as ratings of audience sizes for various markets using sampling methods involving random telephone polling and data gathering boxes strategically placed in viewers homes to monitor viewing activity.
One drawback to this method is that it involves sampling, and all sampling is subject to a certain degree of error. Ratings companies try to scientifically quantify the margin of error for their estimates, and, naturally, they strive to reduce it as much as possible in order for advertisers to have more confidence in their results and willingness to pay the advertising rates that are set according to those estimates. But there is always a degree of uncertainty in the results and the mathematical sciences of statistics and probability have limits in terms of quantifying human behavior.
Moreover, when it comes to advertising, there is no guarantee that viewers are attentively watching the advertising messages played during commercial breaks. Viewers often see commercial breaks as opportunities to take short intermissions to prepare food, make phone calls, and so on. Viewers are typically self-motivated to watch programs based on their personal interests, but there is little incentive for viewers to maintain their focus during commercials other than the entertainment or informational value provided by such commercials. Advertisers, on the other hand, are critically interested in ascertaining whether the advertisements that they have paid a significant sum to place are actually reaching their intended audience.
Print media advertising, such as found in magazines and newspapers, faces a similar dilemma. Advertising rates are typically based on subscription and/or circulation data, but there is still little assurance that readers have actually noticed the advertisements placed in such publications. Readers frequently page over advertisements unless they are specifically looking for something or something just happens to catch their eye. In any case, it is difficult for advertising companies to give any reliable data to advertisers about the number of people who have been impacted by the advertisements they have placed for advertisers. Such an advertising system is based on estimates, assumptions, and the hope that enough people will be impacted by the ads to make placing them worthwhile.
With the advent of the Internet, things have changed a bit. Although web pages still use traditional passive advertisements that attempt to get viewer attention through the use of pictures, typography, color, animation, video or sound, now it is possible to create advertisements that must be actively clicked on in order for viewers to receive further information. Viewers are first presented with preliminary advertisements to catch interest, similar to traditional advertising, except that it is not necessary for such preliminary advertisements to present much in the way of detailed information. Then, interested viewers seeking additional information must actively click on such advertisements to be directed to a subsequent advertisement with additional details. Such a willful click on the part of the viewer is considered a very strong indication of actual interest. Moreover, such willful clicks can be electronically counted in order to measure the effectiveness of such advertising and to bill advertisers accordingly. Through this way, advertisers can have increased confidence that their advertisements were effectively noticed. It is even possible to target specific users matching particular profiles. Such targeting has limits, but works to a degree.
As an example of this technique, U.S. Pat. No. 5,948,061, granted to an advertising company, discloses a system and method for delivering customized advertisements through interactive communications systems such as the Internet. In this technique, advertisers contract with advertising companies to place advertisements in interactive environments that allow viewer responses such as web pages. Such advertisements may or may not be specifically targeted at particular viewers. Either way, viewers must actively click on such advertisements, and the act of clicking can be counted. Advertising companies then bill advertisers according to the number of clicks for various advertisements in order to generate revenue.
There is little doubt that this method of advertising represents a difference in kind rather than just degree from traditional advertising methods. The ability to allow viewers to actively register their interest by clicking dramatically improves on the confidence that advertisers can have in the effectiveness of their advertisements. However, this method is not without its drawbacks. In some ways, the simple act of clicking may be too simple of a response mechanism to state with a high degree of certainty that viewers are definitely interested in the advertisements to which they are directed after clicking. Viewers may be just casually perusing advertisements and not especially interested at the point of clicking. Moreover, counting clicks on advertisements doesn't effectively gage viewer attention after viewers are redirected to subsequent advertisements. Viewers may ignore or minimally attend to such advertisements after they are presented. Lastly, for whatever reasons, the same viewers may click on the same advertisements multiple times, but such events would likely be counted as separate viewer impressions.
Recognizing the drawback that viewers may minimally notice advertisements, U.S. Pat. No. 6,335,744 details a technique for conducting a game over a communications network, wherein users are rewarded for visiting advertisements for lengthier periods of time. The technique involves first attracting a player to a participating advertiser's website to procure a virtual token placed on that website. However, such tokens may only be acquired during certain periods of time as identified by the color of the token or some other identifying characteristic. Having already made the effort to visit a participating website, a player is likely to wait until a token becomes available if it is not presently in the acquisition state, and, during such time, the player may more completely read or take notice of the advertisement with which the token is associated. Later, when the token switches to the acquisition state, the player may acquire it and return to the game to receive credit for visiting the website.
This technique attempts to address a problem inherent with most forms of advertising: viewers often ignore unsolicited advertisements. Much like the old adage about horses and water, “Advertisers may lead viewers to their advertisements but they can't make them think.” Although advertisers may expose viewers to advertisements within a certain advertising medium, it is often difficult to get viewers to specifically pay attention to the details of the advertisements, such that meaningful viewer impressions are realized. Part of the equation measuring the impressions that advertisements have made involves the time that has been spent viewing the advertisements. The preceding invention attempts to increase the viewing time by rewarding players that spend additional time at participating websites. So, this technique likely increases the number of meaningful viewer impressions—as opposed to just clicks—because it increases the time spent viewing advertisements. However, audience members may still ignore or only partially attend to the advertisements. They might even view other websites while waiting for tokens to become available.
Naturally, one way to increase the certainty of viewer interest would be to delay counting viewer impressions until viewers had actually made online purchases or otherwise significantly responded, such as by registering personal information of some sort. While feasible and useful to a point, few advertising companies would want to be restricted solely to this method of revenue generation. Such advertising would be limited to situations where immediate purchases or commitments were desired. However, a large percentage of advertisers don't need or demand immediate responses, as long as they feel that their messages are sufficiently impacting viewers such that they can expect viewer responses in the future. What is needed is a way for viewers to actively express interest that is somewhere in the gap between viewers merely noticing advertisements and the end-goal of making purchases or other commitments.